Melodramatic Romance 단편 소설 & Bias Marriage 소설

For five years, Cora Mitchell had been secretly married to Ethan Caldwell, yet they maintained a strictly professional superior-subordinate relationship at work. During the day, they treated each other like any other boss and secretary. At night, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. No one knew they were husband and wife—until a video of Ethan pinning Cora against his office desk went viral. In the footage, Ethan gripped her waist with bloodshot eyes, his voice still hoarse with desire. “Cora, keep moaning. I love hearing you.” The video had barely surfaced when Cora was branded a homewrecker and dragged to the police station. One side of her face was swollen, and her clothes had been torn off, exposing bruises and marks all over her body. The people surrounding her pointed and sneered with contempt. “Have you heard? She’s a mistress! She used her position as his secretary to seduce Mr. Caldwell. She deserves whatever she gets, even if she’s beaten to death!” Cora struggled to defend herself. “I’m Ethan Caldwell’s wife, not his mistress!” A slap came out of nowhere, sending her stumbling back and nearly toppling to the ground. "Mr. Caldwell belongs with Madison Parker!"

Ethan Hale was the name every pilot at North Ridge Air Base looked up to. I was Ava Morgan, his wife and his only flight partner. To earn my ace qualification, I had to complete three final evaluation missions within the review period. I failed all three. I refused to accept it as coincidence, so I followed the access logs, flight records, and maintenance files until every abnormal detail pointed to one person. Chloe Bennett. When I took the evidence to Ethan, I heard him arguing with his deputy, Liam Reed, behind the office door. "You are putting Chloe forward for the ace-track recommendation? She can barely hold steady in a back seat," Liam said, his anger barely restrained. "Ava is my wife and my flight partner. Chloe is different. She has nothing." Standing outside the door, I suddenly laughed. Then I turned around and accepted the return offer from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Before I left, I gave Ethan three things. And he would regret them for the rest of his life.

An hour into our daughter Nora Cadwell's graduation party, my husband, Samuel Cadwell, still hasn't shown up. More than a hundred calls go unanswered, and every message I send him gets the same automated reply. "On my way." Nora stands to give her speech five different times, only to sit back down again. She keeps her head down and nervously twists the hem of her dress. She just can't bring herself to say the words, "I'd like to thank my parents." When I finally run out of patience and leave the hall, I find Samuel in the hall just next door. He's standing shoulder to shoulder with his widowed first love, Riley Jackson, while her son—whose grades pale in comparison to Nora's—finishes his speech. "I'd like to thank my mom and dad!" Raymond Cooper says with a wide grin on his face. Samuel slips an arm around Riley's shoulders and gives him an approving nod. The room erupts in applause. While I quietly watch them from the side, something inside me finally gives way. I turn and walk back to Nora's graduation party. "He's not coming, sweetheart. Go up there and say what you really want to say," I tell her. I smooth the sadness from her smile with my thumb and whisper, "Remember what we talked about before? You have my full support. Let's do it your way."

By the sixth year of our marriage, I found another man's contact information on my wife's phone. She hadn't shown him to me willingly. While she was taking a shower, a message from an unfamiliar number came through with an intimate photo. A shirtless man had his arms around her while posing for the camera with a peace sign. I picked up the phone and opened the conversation. The chat history had been wiped clean. The entire conversation contained only that one photo, and the contact was saved under a single letter. [M] She hadn't saved his full name or anything else, but it was obvious she had cheated on me.

When I returned from a five-year overseas assignment, I walked out of the airport expecting Dan Hill to finally keep his promise and propose to me. Instead, he stood there with a distant expression. “Stella, I’m sorry.” Before I could even process the apology, he continued, “I was the one who arranged your transfer order. I deliberately had you reassigned to that remote project out in the desert because I needed space for Hayley and myself. She was pregnant back then, and I didn’t have any other choice.” A long silence followed, and I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. Five years of scorching heat, endless dust storms, and sixteen-hour workdays in a place that felt forgotten by the rest of the world… I finally learned it had all been a carefully constructed prison of his making. “You’re overbearing and confrontational. I was afraid you’d go after her. I’m telling you the truth now not because I expect forgiveness, but because I hope you’ll stay calm and not make this uglier than it needs to be.” His voice carried an air of weary resignation. I took a step back to avoid him as he reached out toward me. I was smiling through my tears. “Dan, this could’ve been a clean break, but you’ve ruined that.”

On the night before our engagement party, my fiancée went radio silent for five hours—just to buy her male assistant stomach medicine. When she finally came back, I gave her two choices: fire him, or call off the wedding. She disappeared for three full days. The next time I saw her, she showed up at our doorstep soaking wet. She threw her arms around me and said, "I don't want anyone but you." Then, on our wedding night, she vanished again. I'm an ER doctor. I got called in for an emergency. When I got to the hospital, I found out the patient was her assistant. He had a groin injury. My fiancée was standing by his bedside, disheveled, her clothes a mess. I didn't raise my voice. I just looked at her and said, "Cut ties with him right now. We can still make this work." Her eyes filled with conflict. She hesitated. Then she reached down and took his hand.

Sheila Lindell, my fiancee, is the world's most renowned pyrotechnician. We have been together for seven years, and I have hinted countless times that I want to see a fireworks show made only for me. She always smiles and says, "I'll make you the most beautiful one for your next birthday." I arrive at the beach with high expectations on the night of my birthday, but when I get there, I see Sheila standing together with Jeremy Lund, her first love, under the fireworks. They burst over the sea, looking as brilliant as a dream that doesn't belong to me. I freeze in place when I hear someone nearby chuckle and say, "I heard Ms. Lindell puts on a fireworks show here every year for her first love. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars each time. I guess she really does love him." I stand at the edge of the crowd, watching them surrounded by the fireworks before feeling a sharp pang in my chest. Sheila presents me with a neatly wrapped box when I return home. "Happy birthday, Christian. I bought you a countertop dishwasher. You can leave the dishwashing to it from now on. Your hands won't have to stay in water all the time now." I look down at the neatly wrapped box and smile faintly. I have loved Sheila for seven years, yet I only need a single moment to let her go completely.

My wife, Florence Jipson, told me that our son, Bart Lyons, had been in a severe car accident. His eyes were crushed in the crash, and he had completely lost his vision. I rushed from my company to the hospital. I begged the doctors to use my eye for Bart’s transplant. After the surgery was completed, I was wheeled out of the operating room. Then, I heard the sound of everyone bursting into loud laughter. “God, Benedict is such an idiot. He falls for the same nonsense every single time and never learns.” “Flo, if you told him to go kill himself next time, he’d probably do it too, wouldn’t he? He’s such a well-trained little puppy.” Florence stood in the crowd, holding hands with her assistant, Solomon Sowden. She was laughing just as wildly. “What can I say? Sol loves this kind of drama. So, I had to play along and tell him Bart got hurt. “I really thought Ben would be smart enough to catch on this time. I never expected him to actually be willing to donate his own eye.” Even the eight-year-old Bart nodded in agreement. “Having such a silly dad is so embarrassing.” I was utterly disheartened when I heard Florence and Bart’s mocking remarks. It turned out that even family members who had lived together for more than ten years could become strangers in an instant. I finally chose to let go.

My wife, Sienna Fairchild, has one ironclad rule. Every Monday, she has dinner with her brother-in-law. During that time, she turns off her phone and blocks every message. Nothing, no matter how urgent, takes priority over their little family gathering. Then one day, our daughter falls down the stairs at preschool and breaks her arm. I call Sienna over a dozen times, but not a single one goes through. With no other option, I call her brother-in-law instead. "Abby got hurt at school. Can you have Sienna come to the hospital?" The other end goes quiet. Just when I think the call has been dropped, Sienna's voice comes through. "My whole day belongs to them. Don't bother me unless it's actually important." The line goes dead. I stand frozen, staring at my daughter crying on the hospital bed. She looks up at me with red, tear-filled eyes. "Daddy, does Mommy not want me anymore?" I choke back the lump in my throat as exhaustion washes over me. Maybe it's time to find my daughter a new mother.

My girlfriend, Celia Winters, had her first love save her life before, so she promised to do three things for him. The first time, he called her away to ride the Ferris wheel with him when I was supposed to propose to my girlfriend. The second time, he asked her to accompany him to see the northern lights while I was ill and hospitalized. I had a crush on my girlfriend for eight years, so I endured all of this. It was not until our wedding that my girlfriend publicly admitted that she had not married the one she loved the most. She comforted me, "Zane, I'll have nothing to do with Shane anymore after this. Could you please forgive me again?" However, I did not want to endure it any longer. Since she had not married the right person, I would let her marry him!

When the property manager calls me, I'm in the middle of picking out the curtains for my new home while sitting behind my desk. "Ms. Grant, the moving truck hired by your partner is stuck in the underground garage of the apartment. Do you need help dealing with this incident?" My hand, which is clutching the mouse, freezes at that moment. I haven't even received my keys to my new place. How can I possibly be moving my things there now? "But Matthew showed up with the permission slip that you signed and claimed the keys. Right now, he's carrying the bed into the master suite. "He told me that you've given him permission to let your relative, Ms. Rosalie Sullivan, and her child move into the apartment." Rosalie Sullivan. That name makes my head buzz loudly. I have practically worked myself to the bone for ten years to secure the internal allocation that got me this subsidized apartment in the city center. In fact, I've only received the notification that I'll be receiving this apartment yesterday. To think that Matthew Lowe actually has the audacity to receive the keys behind my back and give the apartment to someone else! As for Rosalie, she's the poor widow left behind by Matthew's best friend. She and her child are also the very same people whom I've personally supported out of my pocket and looked after for three years. I clutch my phone tightly at that moment.

My wife, Sarah, was the executive chef at a renowned Michelin-starred restaurant in town. Her culinary creations were famous across the city, making a reservation nearly impossible to secure. Yet in our ten years of marriage, she had never cooked me a single meal at home. She always claimed that cooking was just her job, and when she came home, she didn’t want to set foot in the kitchen. Naturally, I wanted to visit her restaurant and taste her food. However, every time I brought it up, she insisted that all the tables were fully booked and told me not to make a scene. Everything changed when my mother’s seventieth birthday approached. Half a month in advance, I asked Sarah if she could reserve a table at her restaurant for a family celebration. To my surprise, she readily agreed. On the day of the dinner, I walked arm-in-arm with my mother, followed by around thirty of our relatives. Yet, when we arrived, the receptionist informed us there was no reservation under our name at all. Panicked, I called Sarah more than a dozen times, and she didn’t answer a single call. With no other choice, I swallowed my pride and rushed in, hoping to find her so she could let us in. The moment I pushed the doors open, I froze. Sarah stood there in a spotless white apron, meticulously placing a tiny chocolate car onto a five-tiered birthday cake, and standing right beside her was Mark, her high school sweetheart. As it turned out, today was his son's first birthday party. So it was never that she didn’t know how to care for her family; it was simply that I was never the family she cared about. I quietly backed out of the room, turned around, and reserved a table at another restaurant instead. If she didn’t want to cook for me, then from this day on, I would never ask for her cooking again.

When I went to pick Diana Grant up, she just tossed the car keys toward me. Dangling from the silver ring was a plush white bear pendant. I paused, knowing that she had never kept a keychain or a decorative charm on her keys. Once I slid into the driver's seat, the entire alignment felt off. The seat had clearly been adjusted. "Did you let someone else drive your car?" I asked, keeping my voice casual. Dazed from the alcohol, she offered a dismissive shrug. "Yeah. I lent it to an employee for a quick business trip." I didn't press further. The next morning, the chime of the doorbell broke the silence of the house. When I pulled the door open, a shy, clean-cut young guy was standing on the porch. He blinked, then forced a sheepish smile and handed over a cup of coffee. "Hi," he stammered. "I'm just here to drop off a fresh coffee for Ms. Grant." But my attention wasn't on the coffee. My gaze dropped to his left hand. Twirling lazily around his index finger was a set of keys, and swinging from the metal loop was the same white bear pendant. I took the coffee cup from his hand and quietly closed the door. In the room, Diana's phone lit up on the table. A new notification flashed across the lock screen. It was a message that read: [Diana, I just met your husband. He looks kind of scary. Coffee was delivered safely anyway. Try to drink less alcohol next time, okay?] I picked up the phone and pulled up the video camera. With the recording running, I held the coffee cup over the kitchen sink and slowly poured the warm liquid down the drain. Then I uploaded the recorded video to Diana's social media, broadcasting it to her entire social circle. The caption read: [Thanks for the concern, but she doesn't drink coffee.]

When my ex-boyfriend Harry Thorne went bankrupt, his family forced him into an arranged marriage to save their sinking business. I handed him an abortion record and vanished without a trace. Five years later, we crossed paths again. He tossed a stack of a hundred grand in front of me, telling me to get into his bed on my own accord. I complied. In the heat of his breathless, passionate kisses, I fell under the fleeting illusion that he still loved me. That was till his fingers brushed against the scar on my lower abdomen, and he shoved me to the floor in a fit of rage. “You left me for money, and now you come back wagging your tail, groveling for the exact same thing? How shameless can you be? “You got rid of our child, after I begged you not to. How much did some other bastard pay you to bear his kid? Since you love selling yourself so damn much, I’ll satisfy you. I’ll make sure you sell every last piece of yourself!” Before leaving, he insisted on taking back the hundred grand. I crawled across the cold floor, clutching his pant leg, begging him to stay. He had no idea that the child I gave birth to was his own son, and the money was my last hope to keep our boy alive.

My boyfriend was probably bad at math because he would always get an extra portion whenever he bought something. When we were supposed to go on dates, he would get three people's worth of vouchers. "Sorry, I didn't read too carefully. How about we ask your bestie to join us?" When it was my birthday, he bought two sets of gifts. "Sorry, I got an extra set. Maybe your bestie can have the extra one?" As time went on, the absurdity became the norm, and I numbly played along. Then, it was time to try out my bridal gown, but Zach Lawson, my boyfriend, stopped me. "This is the bridesmaid's gown. I'm keeping it for your bestie. The gown I designed for you is sitting right there." I looked at the bridesmaid's gown. It was luxurious and covered in small, glittering diamonds. The gown he designed for me was barely more conspicuous than a regular dress. There was even a yellowing bloodstain on the hem of the dress. It was at that moment that I decided to end things. He'd given the only haute couture gown spot to Daisy Green. So, I saw no reason to stay in this relationship anymore. I looked at my phone quietly and texted my mentor, who was in Brundela. "Do you have an opening in your institute for one more researcher?"

After a car accident wipes my memory, my mind is stuck ten years in the past—right after I get down on one knee to propose to Angeline Stone. I tear through every app on my phone, desperate to find any proof that Angeline is actually my wife. But all I see in my contacts are numbers I don't recognize, and my WhatsApp chat list is empty. I have no choice but to call my buddy, Rick Tate, to ask him whether Angeline accepted my proposal. To my surprise, he explodes on me like a lit firecracker. "Did a donkey kick you in the head, Caleb? Did she accept your proposal? You're about to divorce her!" My first reaction after hanging up is—damn, I'm a legend. I actually managed to land an ice queen like Angeline. My second reaction is to stare blankly at the handwritten divorce agreement on the nightstand. Who wants a divorce? Me? Am I out of my mind?

When Wendy Chance's father, Josiah, was rendered speechless, I was the only one he wanted to go to speech therapy with. Every time Wendy and I wanted to go out, Josiah would clutch the corner of my shirt. Once again, Wendy would stuff an unused train ticket in my hand and pat my shoulder apologetically. "Treat my dad well, and I'll make it up to you on another trip. Evan can accompany me on this business trip instead. Don’t overthink this." Evan Striker was the secretary she claimed knew his place. I had collected 27 unused tickets over the past three years. They were from unrealized trips to the mountains, historical towns, and the beach. Every ticket turned into a post on Evan's social media accounts. I thought Wendy was just busy with work until one day, I overheard Josiah speaking clearly in the study as I brought him some water. "Did Evan have fun this time?" Wendy laughed. "You're a pretty good actor, Dad. Joel doesn't suspect a thing." Through the crack of the door, I could see Wendy and my best friend, Eli Conway, sitting at the table. Eli was holding up his phone to remind everyone about something. "Joel is supposed to accompany Wendy to the celebration party tomorrow. Remember to follow the plan and be sick tomorrow, Mr. Chance. That should stop him from attending the party and embarrassing Wendy." Everyone laughed, agreeing with the plan, and Josiah even started practising vague hand gestures. I lowered my head to look at the latest ticket in my hand. I had been duped, doing my best to make these schemers’ web of lies come to life. The ticket fell from my hand, and I no longer wanted to wait for Wendy to finally keep her promises.

My husband, Jayson Kaiser, calls me late at night, his tone tinged with apology. "I'm sorry, Sherry… I cheated on you." Everyone around us knows that he loves me more than life itself. It's impossible for him to ever cheat on me, so the moment I realize it's April Fool's Day today, I reply with a laugh, "And I cheated on you too." He doesn't seem the least bit surprised, however. In fact, he sounds relieved. "That's good. Now I don't feel as guilty. The divorce papers are in the second drawer of the nightstand. You can sign them now." I'm just about to praise him for his convincing act when he hangs up on me. I pull open the nightstand drawer with a grin, but immediately freeze in place the moment I see it. As it turned out, the divorce papers are actually real, and he had already signed them too. My eyes sting with tears. Just as I'm about to call him again and demand to know if this is just another one of his elaborate pranks, I receive a text message from Amelia Greene, one of his female students. "Mrs. Kaiser! You cheated on Dr. Kaiser too? Then hurry up and give up your spot to me! I want to celebrate our first anniversary together in public!"

After Cassian Frick scatters my mother's ashes, Serena Skelding and he become sworn enemies. To stand up for me, Serena drives her car into Cassian and breaks his leg. They remain locked in a bitter feud for five years. It finally comes to an end when Serena marries me, and Cassian leaves the country in disgrace. Three years later, Cassian shows up again at a class reunion. Someone urges him to liven things up. Cassian looks at Serena and smiles. "She and I once had a child. We went at it too roughly and lost it, though. Before I went abroad, she promised me she'd mourn our unborn child for three years." As he says this, he gives me a meaningful look. "Hey, you still haven't slept with her, have you?" I whip my head around and stare at Serena, demanding an explanation. But all she does is nonchalantly pat my hand and say, "After midnight, you can touch me." The normal intimacy between husband and wife somehow becomes a privilege she bestows upon me. She acts as if she's throwing me a bone. At that moment, I suddenly realize how laughably foolish I've been.

I loved Cassidy more than anything. Although she had been involved with countless men, and she had even cheated on me with Henry, the fake heir, I still couldn't bring myself to let her go. I worked out, took medication, and did everything I could because I wanted to have a child with her. When the doctor finally told me today that I met the required fertility criteria, I grabbed the test results and rushed straight to her office. "Cassidy, I–" My voice came to an abrupt halt. Cassidy was passionately kissing her new male secretary with her arms wrapped around him. She glanced at me impatiently. "Get out!" I suddenly came to my senses. I could accept having a wife like her, but could our future child accept having a mother like her?